Scumbags get sneaky with new self-robbery trojan

Can't be bothered to steal your cash themselves

Malware-peddling scumbags have developed a particularly sneaky banking Trojan that attempts to trick victims into transferring funds into bank accounts controlled by cybercrooks or their partners.

The Trojan generates a fake message at the point victims log into their bank account warning them of a mistaken credit to their accounts that supposedly needs to be reversed in order to unfreeze that account. The malware falsely inflates displayed account balances on infected machines in order to make the ploy more plausible.

Victims are offered a pre-filed online transfer form in order to make it more likely they will quickly comply with the fraudulent transfer request, security blogger Brian Krebs reports.

It's unclear how many have fallen victim to the scam, which first surfaced in in Germany. The German Federal Criminal Police ("Bundeskriminalamt") warned consumers of the con without saying which banks had been targeted or specifying what malware was involved.

Previous banking Trojans, such as the URL Zone Trojan, have incorporated web injects to display fake balances on infected machines. The latest strain of malware represents an evolution of this ploy.

Time is often of the essence in banking fraud and it may be that tricking victims into transferring funds themselves instead of relying on money mules to raid compromised accounts offers fraudsters the ability to loot accounts more quickly, before compromised accounts are suspended or login credentials are changed. ®